Professor Ma obtained his PhD in Astronomy in 2011 and then spent 3 years at University of British Columbia (Canada) as a CITA national postdoc fellow, and another 1-year at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at University of Manchester, UK.

His research is mainly on radio astronomy and cosmology. He also has strong interests in testing general relativity and extreme physics with various astronomical observations. He believes that the future multi-tracer observations (such as galaxy surveys, neutral hydrogen survey etc) can give us a clearer and correct understanding of the cosmic evolution.